


Bedroom Hymns

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [86]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, John's love life is an open book to Sherlock, Sherlock Makes Deductions, Sherlock knows too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock sees everything. Even things he doesn't really want to see.  Things he certainly doesn't need to see. But he sees and knows them anyway.</p><p>Things like John's kinks, and the fact that his friend is very good in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedroom Hymns

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Florence and the Machine.
> 
> *I'm still getting to We Think It's Love Love Love. My long weekend plans were blown out of the water by a family emergency. My mother is very ill in hospital: stable now, and off the critical ward, but certainly very far from well. I came up for the weekend and am returning home tonight. I also caught a very nasty head cold. So let's applaud the high level of suck for this weekend. (Though let us also applaud the high level of awesome that is my brothers, their families and especially my niece, as we get through this together).
> 
> Anyway, thinking about the unfinished story, this little piece suggested itself and it's given me a welcome distraction from worry.

Sherlock sees everything. Even things he doesn't really want to see.  About Greg and Molly; about Tad Anderson; about Mycroft and Sally; about Mrs Hudson. About John. These are things he certainly doesn't _need_ to see. But he sees and knows them anyway.

In some ways it's worse with John. With the others he can more or less delete the knowledge if it only has occasional tells, at least till the next time. But he lives with John Watson. He gets _constant_ reminders. So he puts those things in his mind palace in the room marked ‘John’. (It’s a very full room and lately he’s added a mezzanine to it.)

Some of these things are just a bit annoying and not helpful in the slightest. Knowing when John has had a stressful day and is likely to have nightmares is at least good for something. (Sherlock will play his violin, the soothing melodies that John likes, and now, post-Year in Hell, he’ll leave the door open for John to choose whether to sleep there, which he often does.)

But what good is it knowing exactly what foods are going to give John the worst flatulence? (Well, apart from knowing when to escape the flat or, better, send John on a pointless scouting expedition or on a hunt for wood-shavings or whatever. John so far seems unaware of the connection. Sherlock suspects it is more politic not to point it out.)

How useful is it to be aware that John won’t eat the crust end of bread loaves, and so habitually abandons two crusts in their bags in the freezer in order to start on the next loaf? (A habit that irritates Sherlock as fully as his own of leaving ears in the fridge annoys John.)

What earthly point is there in knowing that when John is wearing his khaki socks, the wash is overdue? (which doesn’t bother Sherlock – most of his stuff is dry-clean only, or he just buys new underwear;  or possibly it means Sherlock has been using John’s socks in experiments again, which _he already knows_. So John’s khaki socks are useless extra data.)

And then there are the _other_ things Sherlock has noticed over the years. Things that really are utterly useless to him.

For example, not all the long showers John takes are when he is stressed and trying to find quiet space. Some are the showers where he's just really enjoying a long wank. (Clues:  in both instances, on emerging from the bathroom John has a more relaxed posture, but he has a particular kind of half smile on the latter occasions, is more likely to make tea in a pot, taking a more leisurely approach, a kind of post-self-coital indulgence.)

John's is also aroused by sex scenes in some of those trashy books he reads. (Clues: shifting in mild discomfort on the sofa or his chair, retiring early 'to read'. Simple matter to look at the book later and confirm the passages John was reading at the time. Sherlock fails to see the appeal, and the prose is invariably appalling.)

And there’s the obvious and worthless observation that John is considered by his partners to be good in bed. (Clues: past girlfriends' persistence in the face of Sherlock's interference indicates tenacity; determination to 'bag a doctor' possibly, but levels of flirting and innuendo perpetrated by those who lasted beyond the first overnight date clearly keen to duplicate the experience. Ergo, John is a considerate and skilled lover. More useless data. Sherlock would have deleted it, but the facts were re-presented on several occasions. Potential for use in a case? Nil. John made that very clear. Very loudly. Accompanied by the slamming of doors.)

All of this Sherlock deduced (and then couldn't un-know) in the years before the Year in Hell.

After Sherlock came home, he further knew that John had been without a partner during his whole absence, and also since his return. He knew that John had passed up several opportunities to date, having seemingly lost interest – certainly in anyone who had even the slightest negativity about Sherlock’s presence in his life.

(It took a while for Sherlock to accept that this was a new and permanent attitude. He thought John’s libido would drive him to compromise earlier, but that never happened. In fact, other expressions of John’s libido has also faded into non-existence, by which Sherlock knew the trauma of the Year in Hell was not merely his own.)

And then John met Mary and after a short time, the shower-wanking and reading in bed slowly resumed.

Then John and Mary had started sleeping together (well, after a certain delay, but Sherlock and Nirupa had sorted themselves out eventually), and a whole new range of deductions happened whether Sherlock willed it or no.

New things Sherlock knew about John (and therefore Mary) and couldn’t, alas, un-know:

John enjoyed a little light bondage. ( Clues: wrinkle patterns on some of John’s ties, and three of Mary’s scarves; slight chafing on John’s own wrists: Mary was clearly the dom there. Sherlock was sort of pleased in spite of himself. John’s trust issues were clearly not interfering here. Quite the opposite. Here was a woman to whom John was prepared to surrender his considerable power. There were no signs that pain play was a factor, only the tying up. Most of the other times John had been tied up, other people were hitting him to extract information – which John never divulged – or trying to kill one or both of them, so this was a considerable sign of trust indeed.).

John had discovered an enjoyment of anal play (Clues: for the first time in their acquaintance, John’s limp had returned, but on the wrong leg, and it didn’t seem to upset him, psychologically speaking. A single day of a mild limp and tenderness while sitting indicated a willingness to experiment, but this set of symptoms had presented on multiple occasions, and the discomfort was accompanied by very small but certainly warm expressions of reminiscence. John would often rise again to make a leisurely pot of tea, a habit already associated with post-coital lassitude and contentment. Sherlock didn’t mind that so much. At least he usually got an excellent cup of tea out of it.)

John was not only a considerate and skilled lover, he was obviously adventurous and even playful. And he had stamina. (Clues: good god, the _giggling,_ that started in the stairwell and continued for _several hours_ , even though the couple made attempts to keep the noise down. Speaking of which, _the noise_. Perhaps worse because of the attempted restraint, which seemed to act as a spur to their pleasure. The bed squeaked only softly, but rapidly. Moans buried in skin and whispered imprecations filtered downstairs as a kind of happy buzz. And once again, the laughter; _the giggling_. Perhaps it really wasn’t as loud as all that, but Sherlock didn’t sleep that much and his hearing was distressingly excellent.)

Still, at least John often made those post-coital pots of excellent tea the morning after.

Sherlock figured that if he had to know these things, at least they meant that a) John was happy and b) Sherlock partook of excellent fresh brewed tea most days that Mary was in town.

So he decided not to tell John that he knew almost exactly how good John was in bed, or how many of John’s kinks he had deduced, because good tea should never be spurned, whatever the reason for its existence.

Besides, it pleased Sherlock that John was happy. John’s room in Sherlock’s mind palace hadn’t always been a sunny place. Maternal loss, paternal abuse, war, wounds, trauma (and those dreams of Sherlock falling, which Sherlock so regretted giving him) – those things had thrown long shadows in that room.

But now there was a picture of Mary on the wall of John’s room in his mind (and one of Nirupa beside it, though she might have her own space soon, in the expanding Friendship Hall) and from that corner emanated light.

(In due course, Sherlock realised that the other light in that room came from him.)

Also in due course, Sherlock realised that whatever data he stored of John – whether it was useless for the Work, or was way too personal and a little awkward to know – was not _worthless_. Because nothing he knew about John lacked value. Not ever.


End file.
